


Nero's Watching From the Sidelines and Eating Popcorn

by SeahorseJellyfish53



Category: Devil May Cry
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Dadgil, Do only midwestern high schools host school fairs?, Gen, Nero is about elementary age, Vergil is petty, Vergil only SEEMS like the calmer twin, not sure if 00C, school is too underfunded to care
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-15
Updated: 2020-03-15
Packaged: 2021-03-01 04:00:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,383
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23158927
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SeahorseJellyfish53/pseuds/SeahorseJellyfish53
Summary: Vergil gets petty playing some game in the parking lot of some high school.
Relationships: Nero & Vergil (Devil May Cry), Vergil & Rigged Carnival Games
Comments: 7
Kudos: 59





	Nero's Watching From the Sidelines and Eating Popcorn

The sun was strong and hot and would’ve melted Nero’s popsicle if he hadn’t crushed and shoved it straight into his mouth and self-inflicted a bout of brain freeze. Vergil would’ve chuckled if it weren’t for his sudden remembrance of an incident a week ago where he himself got into a competition with Dante to see who could clear one of those jumbo jars of Chunky Monkey PB&J ice cream first at 3 am on a school night.

It had not been pretty.

They were currently in the less crowded part of a local carnival held in the parking lot of a public high school. His young son had seen one of those bright, swinging pendulum boats painted like a viking ship, and his eyes followed to a garden of colorful tents, and to the big crowd of people. Cue the pleading to go. Cue Vergil saying yes, despite both his devil and human sides groaning at the possibility of being jammed with all the crying toddlers and stupid teens.

So there they were, Nero curled into his side despite the summer heat, as he recovered from the brain freeze. After their terrible battle of Judgement-cutting in, realizing they needed tickets to ride all the rides, learning that tickets were sold at the entrance, Yamato-ing back to the entrance, and waiting in that godforsaken line to buy tickets, Nero riding all the rickety rides manned by apathetic teens and giving his father many near-heart attacks, was this how they’ll get taken out? On this cheap white plastic bench? Vergil tugged at his ascot to let his neck breathe. Perhaps he should remove his coat; he swore the heat was unnatural. No, Dante had always made fun of him going out in his gear in any whether, like hell will he validate his brother. Besides, Dante was the one who wore that strap and nothing else in the middle of winter, without even zipping the coat.

“Dad, how many tickets do we have left?” Nero asked, his cooling of the capillaries of the sinuses by a cold stimulus forgotten. He was eyeing that swinging viking boat ride again. When Nero first rode it, he had sat at the very tip and neglected to wear his seatbelt and decided to let go of the gripping bar right when he was tilted upside-down. All while waving at his father at the sidelines.

“Three,” that ride needed five tickets to ride. Thank God. “Do you have anything else in mind?”

“Hmnn...” Nero let out an exaggerated sign as he twisted his body around and around. He saw a magenta-and-burgundy cover of one of those bottle-knocking games and brightened up. “Look!” he pointed at what was, to Vergil, a stuffed animal in the crowd of stuffed animals among the insides of the tent, “a chicken!”

How his son saw a chicken in what was definitely some dark cross between a condor and a raven was of no matter. He gave the tickets to Nero and returned to trying to conjure up a radius of menace to deter people from sitting next to him.

He failed. Some suburban mom with streaked hair and foundation too light for her face plopped herself next to him and started talking about teachers and managers. He left.

******

  
Vergil joined Nero in the middle of his quest for the prize. Nero threw a chewed tennis ball at the structure of bottles. He hit it but didn’t knock it over. He threw another one. he hit it but didn’t knock it over again. Nero gave a teen reading a magazine another ticket and tried again. He aimed harder. The structure still didn’t budge. He hit harder. the structure didn’t even shake.

No wonder the tent was still jammed with prizes.

Finally, Vergil looked at his son, “May I?” and held out his hand. Nero handed the last ticket to him. Vergil gave it to the teen. he received a normal tennis ball and a table tennis ball. Vergil readied himself.

He fixed a glare at the bottle in the lower center, painted white but soured with years of use. Spindly cracks had fixed itself on its sides. Vergil could ever make out the marks where it originally had those stickers displaying nutrition facts. He calculated the exact amount of strength needed to not draw attention to his heritage. He threw.

he hit and but didn't knock anything down. that forsaken tower still stood, in that mocking, arrogant way.

Vergil palmed his next turn, resolving to update his strength to that of someone who could crush a goat’s neck in the most brutal way, but not strong enough to crush that of a Hell elephant. He threw.

An impact was made. The tower. Did not. Budge.

Vergil unsheathed Yamato and slashed a hole to the front of the ticket line, cutting in front of everyone, “Nero, my wallet is in the left pocket. Get me more tickets.”

Nero obliged. a pile of overpriced tickets appeared before him. He dumped it in front of the teen, who was checking a shift schedule. He received the projectiles.

He threw even harder. 

He failed.

He threw even harder and at an angle.

He failed.

He aimed at the side of a street lamp and threw in a way so that the ball would hit the lamp, bounce to the rolling hot dog cart, ricochet off that guy’s baby carriage, smash through that window, and hit the bottle tower.

He did, but nothing was knocked over.

If it wasn’t war then, it was war now. 

Vergil shed himself of any limitation to appear like a normal, feeble, weak-minded human who spent his days running from unpleasant entitled mothers. He drew on strength that forced lesser demos to retreat, turned the blade yamato into an even more perfect killing machine, and raised more than enough money to compensate for the empousa destroying all the batches of popcorn Nero was supposed to sell for his school. He drew on his history as sparda’s eldest son and threw the ball with killer grace and strength.

Fail.

He started boosting his throws with summoned swords.

Fail. Again.

Add even more summoned swords.

Fail but he did manage to destroy the table tennis ball. (“you’re gonna have to pay for that,” piped the teen from under his desk).

Rinse and repeat, all failures and a rapidly diminishing number of turns(“dad, it doesn’t matter anymore, just let it go”).

He Devil Triggered.

Fail.

Devil Trigger plus summoned swords.

Failures, all failures.

He was on the last round. The tennis ball’s fuzz had blackened and burned away from Vergil's intense throwing. Nero had used what remained of his father’s cash to buy himself a large plasticky popcorn bucket and a jumbo can of watered down soda. Vergil's eyes fell to his side. He got an idea.

Vergil dropped the ball. It fell to the ground with a mushy _thunk_. He unsheathed Yamato in his Devil Trigger. All the raw power made the air dance. He positioned himself in the most optimal position. Power coursed through his veins and into his throwing arm. He felt his son’s stare. Yes Nero, this was what he did for a living, look upon and feel the awe. He threw Yamato, one of Sparda’s three ultimate swords.

It flew right between the eyes of a demon swooping from the sky.

******

  
One freak demon attack and mandatory evacuation later, Vergil found his son cheering among the rubble. He went back into human form and scooped Nero right up in the crook of his arm, ignoring his insistence of being too old.

He spared a look at that hideous tent, the person in charge having long run off. The prizes spilled like the furry, fluffy intestines of some large, hideous beast.

Something poked through the fabric, like that alien in that person’s chest from that movie. Vergil lifted the covering up. it was that bottle tower, still standing.

And a few feet away from it, nestled in the clutches of the mascot of some knockoff amusement park, was the ‘chicken’.

Vergil strided over and plucked the instigator that started it all, much to Nero's delight. His son buried his face in the chicken's fuzzy stomach and hugged his prize. They went home.


End file.
